Book description
Out of This Furnace is Thomas Bell’s most compelling achievement. Its story of three generations of an immigrant Slovak family -- the Dobrejcaks -- still stands as a fresh and extraordinary accomplishment.
The novel begins in the mid-1880s with the naive blundering career of Djuro Kracha. It tracks his arrival…
Why read it?
1 author picked Out of This Furnace as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
When workers organize, it’s not only for themselves and for generations to come, but also a response to suffering by generations past.
Thomas Bell (born Adalbert Belacyk) brings this to light in his saga of Slovak-American life in steel town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, where he grew up in a family much like the one at the novel’s center. The story stretches from the 1880s into the mid-1930s, culminating with the unionization of U.S. Steel, a megacorporation that had previously crushed all efforts at labor organizing.
No book offers a more intimate view of what it took to bring this company…
From Priscilla's list on The best books on U.S. labor history that bring personal stories to life.
If you love Out of This Furnace...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Want books like Out of This Furnace?
Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Out of This Furnace.
Share your top 3 reads of 2026!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
186
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Out of This Furnace, you might also like...
Child of Vanris
At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…
Almost Home
Almost Home is a fictional retelling of the last great tragedy of the Civil War.
In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers. Among them are four Indiana soldiers…
